In the context of the present invention, a presentation is a group of visual aids or slides that are designed and produced to deliver information, whether on a computer screen, a transparency, or overhead projector. On a personal computer system, a slide comprises one screen of information which corresponds to a photographic slide or transparency. Each slide may include text, graphics and charts, or any combination thereof, that is effective or delivering a desired message.
The slides comprising a presentation produced on a personal computer are stored together as a file. Playback of such files may be initiated automatically or manually. In automatic playback, each slide is displayed on a computer screen for a predetermined time before transition is made to the next slide and so on until all of the slides in the presentation file have been displayed. Alternatively, in manual mode, each slide is manually accessed and displayed for as long as the user wishes while discussing the topics shown.
Multimedia slides incorporate data from present-day multimedia devices to add sound effects, animation and video to the text, graphics and charts produced by the computer itself. Even if multimedia is unavailable, computer programs for producing presentations can add many special effects such as transitions between slides and animation.
Presentation graphics programs can also incorporate information created in another program, such as a spreadsheet application. Typically such presentations may be printed out to provide audience handouts and speaker notes.
GUIs for use on computer systems of all sizes and complexities have become extremely popular and important to operators and users of computer systems. It is now well recognized that recognizing graphics is faster than reading text. In the personal computer industry, the Macintosh, produced by Apple Computer Company and Windows Interface Program GUI, produced by Microsoft Corporation, for use on personal computers, such as the PS/2 produced by IBM Corporation, provide convenient, well-known and easily recognized symbols, icons, screen paradigms and all other manner of graphical representations of computer functionality easily manufactured by users. The Iris System used on work station level computer systems, produced by Silicon Graphics, Inc., and Open Book, similarly used on work station computer systems produced by Sun Microsystems, Inc., both provide well-recognized, easily used GUIs. UIs provide enhancements and extensions to GUIs.
GUIs are often used with other applications programs such as word processing and spreadsheet programs. Thus, for example, Word Perfect 5.1 word processing may be used with Windows on a personal computer, model PS/2, produced by IBM Corporation.
While a GUI may be manipulated using a computer keyboard only, the pointing device of choice by most users is a mouse or track ball. These devices are used for moving a cursor across the screen of a computer system to point to or identify a particular object or function the user desires to access or initiate, respectively. Movement of the mouse or the trackball initiates corresponding movement of the cursor across the screen. When the cursor reaches the point or object of interest on the screen, the object is accessed or the function is initiated by actuating one of at least two buttons that form a part of the mouse or trackball.
Some GUIs provide the capability to invert the typical functionality of the pointing device buttons. Therefore, while the so-called "left" button is active according to the usual convention, the "right" button may become active if so desired by the user. Thus, for purposes of describing the present invention, the first button refers to the usually active button for selecting objects and icons and initiating actions according to the prior art.
As personal computers have become more powerful, in both the speed with which they process data and the amount of data they can process, the functionality and complexity of GUIs has grown. Correspondingly, the need to add functionality to pointing devices has similarly increased. Thus, it is desirable to add functionality to pointing devices by defining computer functionality and behavior upon actuation, i.e. depressing, both the first and the second button of a pointing device while the cursor is over an object created by a user or a personal computer system having a GUI.
For purposes of describing the present invention, it should be noted that each slide comprises a template on which objects such as text, graphics and charts are placed. The template, as used herein, comprises a choice of background designs for enhancing display of the objects which appear on top of the desired background design. As indicated earlier, objects may also include video and animation, which also appear on top of the background design provided by the template.